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The First Day of School
| aired = 1 August 2010 | writer = Henry Bromell (Teleplay) Jason Horwitch (story) and Henry Bromell (story) | director = Guy Ferland | starring = James Badge Dale as Will Travers Jessica Collins as Maggie Young Lauren Hodges as Tanya MacGaffin Dallas Roberts as Miles Fiedler Christopher Evan Welch as Grant Test with Arliss Howard as Kale Ingram and Miranda Richardson as Katherine Rhumor | guest_cast = Michael Christofer as Truxton Spangler Murphy Guyer as David Rasche as Roger Robinson as Ed Bancroft and Concetta Tomei as Isiah Whitlock, Jr. | co-starring = Manish Dayal as Darren Goldstein as Mark Lotto as Mark Morettini as Thomas Schall as and Daniel Stewart Sherman as | uncredited = }} "The First Day of School" is the 2nd episode in Season 1 of Rubicon, and the 2nd produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast in the United States on August 1st, 2010. Synopsis With Will Travers Will Travers stands atop the API building, peering at the cars and pedestrians below. Closing his eyes, he places both feet partway over the roof's ledge. He pauses a moment, then jumps back onto the roof. Someone appears to be watching from afar. Tanya MacGaffin arrives at work, eyes bloodshot. In the women's restroom, Maggie Young hears her retch into the toilet. In his office with Maggie, Will admits to feeling nervous about replacing David Hadas. "Don't be," she says. "Everyone's rooting for you." Will visits the basement sanctum of Hal and asks for help researching the crossword patterns -- off the record. "That would be against the rules," Hal replies. Will arrives late to Kale Ingram's office for an intake meeting. After the API teams receive their updated intelligence reports, Kale takes Will to meet with Truxton Spangler. "Don't let me down," says Kale. "I recommended you for this job." Kale enters Spangler's office without Will. "How was D.C.?" he asks. "Usual cockfight," Spangler replies. "Any more noise about the crossword thing?" “Quiet as a mouse,” replies Kale before departing. Will enters Spangler's office. Spangler shows Will a photograph of the Russian missile broker Yuri Popovich with two currently unidentified men; Spangler wants to know the identities of the two men. Spangler tells Will he needs the information within twenty-four hours. Grant Test arrives late to a team meeting -- he was attending Career Day at his child's school -- and complains about the doughnuts Tanya brought. He prefers beignets. They need to concentrate on Popovich, says Will. "Why?" sulks Grant. In the employee cafeteria, Maggie tells Will that Kale wants him to occupy David's office "to keep you closer." Will pays for Maggie's meal -- about as close as she's likely to get to a lunch date, she comments. Eating with his team, Will learns that one of Popovich's companions has been identified as George Boeck. Will asks Grant about Career Day. "My kid thinks I'm unemployed," Grant grumbles. "I tell my kids that I write secret video games," says Miles. Hal informs Will that in 1983 multiple international newspapers published identical crossword clues. He hasn't determined who wrote them or why. "Keep looking," says Will. Hal objects that doing so could get him fired. Will goes through David’s things packed in boxes and finds a picture of himself, his wife, his daughter, and David. Will then discovers a sheet of paper in David’s typewriter with letters typed in groups of three. Will visits Ed Bancroft and tells him that on the morning of the train crash, David's car was parked in spot number thirteen. "Impossible," Ed responds. "Somebody else parked it, or he wanted us to know something was wrong," says Will. "What if he knew that train was going to crash?” Will shows Ed the sheet of paper he found in David’s typewriter. "This is really old-school," says Ed. The letters correspond to a book's pages, lines, and letters. Ed admits that he wrote the crossword code. It was a go code. "To start what?" asks Will. Will applies the code to the road-food guidebook David gave him. "They hide in plain sight," the code spells out. Walking by Miles's office, Will hears a television report about a Nigerian uprising. "No one listens,” says Miles, distraught as much that his advice on Nigeria was ignored as by his personal life. Will turns the TV off and recommends that Miles spend time with his family and return fresh the next day. After Will leaves, Miles turns the TV back on. On the street, Will notices someone following him. While walking home, he drops a rabbit’s foot that he had taken from David’s office as a memento, and, as he bends to pick it up, he narrowly escapes being hit by an out-of-control taxi. Working in his apartment, Will hears footsteps outside his door. He grabs a baseball bat, but the sound subsides. At the office, Hal informs Will that the 1983 crossword clues were published after the bombing of a marine barracks in Beirut. The day after the clues appeared, supporters of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, the attack's sponsor, disappeared. “Go code initiates revenge killings," says Will. Spangler interrupts a conversation between Will and Maggie. "You'll have something on my desk this morning regarding Yuri?" he says. "Absolutely," Will replies. Will meets with his team. Miles lies about relaxing with his family. Grant extols British colonial institutions, specifically their "standards of behavior." "Doughnuts every morning?" chimes in Miles. "Exactly," says Grant, just as Tanya appears with beignets. When Grant responds flippantly to Will’s questions about Yuri, Will responds furiously calling Grant a "lazy, pompous piece of shit" and demands information by the end of the day. The team slinks silently away. Will again stands atop the building. "Maybe he'll jump this time," says one of two watching men. "No such luck," says the other. "He's looking right at me." "Relax. He's going back down." With Katherine Rhumor At a law office, Katherine Rhumor attends the reading of her husband Tom's will. Her inheritance includes a townhouse that she was unaware her husband owned. Katherine also finds Tom edited his will the week before his death to leave her a company. Katherine visits the townhouse and examines evidence -- a monogrammed bathrobe, books on the nightstands -- of his life there. Katherine quizzes Tom's friend James Wheeler about the townhouse. "Tom wasn't cheating on you," he tells her. "Believe me." "I really don't," she replies. At her home, Katherine finds a four-leaf clover left for Tom. "Lucky, lucky, lucky," she says. With James Wheeler James Wheeler expresses concern to a man he calls R.C. that Spangler is becoming overzealous. "He knows what he's doing," says R.C. "He's getting older," says Wheeler. “We all are.” With Maggie Young A subdued Maggie meets Kale in a hotel room the next morning. "What you got for me this week?" he asks. "Grant is jealous of Will," Maggie reports, something is freaking out Miles, and Tanya may have a "drinking issue." Kale asks if Will seems "distracted by David's death, anything like that." Maggie says no.